Tegan, a Napa Valley native, got his start in the wine industry working in winery labs in Napa. He has worked in the cellars of Craggy Range in New Zealand with Doug Wisor, with Eben Sadie in the Swartland of South Africa, and with Alain and Maxime Graillot in the Northern Rhone Valley of France. For the past twenty years, he has worked for Turley Wine Cellars, working his way up from harvest intern to Winemaker/Vineyard Manager.

Sandlands is the personal project of Tegan Passalacqua. The line-up encompasses the forgotten classic California varieties, primarily grown in decomposed granite (sand), from regions and vineyards that have been farmed for many generations but have remained the outliers of California viticulture.

Primarily head-trained, dry-farmed, and own-rooted, the vineyards we work with harken back to California’s roots of exploration, wonder, and hard work.

This blend comes from three of the oldest California vineyards and is in equal parts Cinsault from the Bechthold Vineyard (planted in 1886), Carignane from Spenker Ranch (1900), and Zinfandel from Kirschenmann Vineyard (1915), the winery's home ranch in Victor, CA.